Speaqualizer

Speaqualizer

[Whistler]

A while back I asked if anyone has used Speaqualizer with Linux.  I got
zero response except for people asking what it was.  I have since talked
to a few of the orignal people who worked on the speaqulizer and they have
assured me that it will give full speech output for the Linux or any unix
command line OS.  I am currently ordering it I figure 600$ is not to much
if it realy does what it says.  If it does give full access to the command
line I guess all that is left is to have xwin access.  I just thought I
would let the people on this list what I found.

Ken /whistler

Re: Speaqualizer

[Jason White]

There was some discussion in the early days of this mailing list of
problems associated with accessing Linux via a Papenmeier braille display,
which can read the video hardware directly Apparently the difficulty was
concerned with different pages of video memory. I do not know whether this
will affect use of the Speaqualizer.

Re: Speaqualizer

[Whistler]

>From what I understand it shouldn't affect it.  The Speaqualizer was
orignally made for unix and even NT when nt was more Zenix based.  I guess
from what I have beent old the only reason it was pushed aside is to make
way for GUI stuff but then I might be blowing smoke I will buy one and see
and write it off as a business expense.  Speaking of which I have opened
my own business selling computers both hard ware and software.  You can
check outmy web page at

www.blinksoft.com

Oh and we do accept credit card and we do build the system to your desires
including software instalation.

ken /whistler

On Wed, 11 Mar 1998, Jason White wrote:

> There was some discussion in the early days of this mailing list of
> problems associated with accessing Linux via a Papenmeier braille display,
> which can read the video hardware directly Apparently the difficulty was
> concerned with different pages of video memory. I do not know whether this
> will affect use of the Speaqualizer.
> 
> 
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Re: Speaqualizer

[Joel S. Zimba]

I love the speaquilizer!
  I don't own one now.  I used it all through highschool.
I do in fact own a papenmeir braillex 2d.
I had a problem running linux for a long time.... thanks to the
no-scroll boot option, I don't have a bit of trouble anymore

I think hardward driven displays rock!  Whether it be braille
or speech, you see what is really honest to god
there! you dn't have to rely on how someone else
thinks a blind person wants to see information.
you gt it the way the computer cranks it out and you sink or swim.


I would assume the speaquilizer will work just fine with linux if you use the no-scroll option
when you boot.
as in at the lilo prompt, you type no-scroll
after identifying which boot option you want, or hardcoding it into lilo.conf...
rtfm on how to do that.

good luck, and please let us know how it works!

Joel

Re: Speaqualizer

[Richard Caloggero]

     What is a papenmeir braillex 2d?  Is it a 2d braille display --
something with more that just one line of refreshable braille?  I keep
hearing that such things are in the works, but have yet to find out
anything definate about any such research.

					Rich

Re: BRAILLEX 2D [was Re: Speaqualizer]

[Rolf Mager]

Hello Rich,

>     What is a papenmeir braillex 2d?  Is it a 2d braille display --
>something with more that just one line of refreshable braille?  I keep
>hearing that such things are in the works, but have yet to find out
>anything definate about any such research.

The BRAILLEX-2D Screen from Papenmeier is a two-dimensional Braille
display. Two-dimensional means the BRAILLEX-2D Screen integrates:
1) a horizontal braille display (80 cells)
2) a vertical tactile display (44 x 4 dot lines)
The idea is that the horizontal display presents lines of text, while
the vertical gives structural information, for example, which lines
hold text or where windows and icons are. The vertical array of 44 x 4
dot lines with routing keys is used to give an overview of the contents
of the screen or a window.

Above each braille cell within the horizontal and vertical Braille display
are routing keys which are used to move the cursor to a particular spot.
In Windows mode, they are used to move the mouse. Clicking on routing
keys at the mouse pointer location
generates a mouse click.

There was also a device called BRAILLEX-GUIDE, which had two horizontal
Braille lines (with 80 cells per line) and a vertical display.
Yet, the additional horizontal Braille display line made it pretty
expensive.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you need more information.

Rolf